All These Memories
by rosemarried
Summary: Remus visits with James, Lily and Harry the day Voldemort attacks and reminisces with them. Don't dwell to much on the genres; nothing seemed to quite fit, so I just picked those two.


**All These Memories was written for the Goodbye challenge by MadHatterBellatrix10. I was to write Remus saying goodbye to Lily and James the day they die, but I couldn't resist writing the whole day, otherwise this would have been like 500 words. So enjoy, review, bug me about completing my other stories and all that good stuff. **

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Remus knocked on the Potter house door, the cool breeze feeling great on such a hot August day. After only a few seconds, Lily's voice spoke through the door.

"Remus?" it asked tentatively.

"Yes, it's me." he said.

"What color were your eyes before you were bitten?" she asked. The security question, he realized. He wasn't supposed to know the question since it was changed every visit and not told to him before he got there so that way if the Death Eaters got the answer to the last one, it would not matter.

"Green." he answered. "They were green. And yours; what year did you agree to date James Potter?"

He could hear her smile in her voice. "It was in our 7th year." she said before flinging open the door and enveloping him in a tight hug. Remus chuckled and hugged her back.

"Remus, it's so good to see you again!" Lily exclaimed, pulling away and holding him at arms length. "You've been away for a whole month." Remus nodded.

"Yes, but I'm back now. I'll tell you both the story - Prongs!" he exclaimed as James pushed through the doorway and attacked him with a tight hug. "Prongs, I can't breathe!" he choked out.

"Sorry, mate." James said, letting him go and grinning. Remus was hunched over gasping for breath. "Well, don't just stand there; come in!" he exclaimed and pulled the man in after him.

The living room was now a calm blue, a much calmer color than the bright orange it used to be. Lily caught him staring and beamed.

"Yes, I finally convinced him to change it." she said happily. "That orange color gave me a headache every time I walked into the room."

"I'm still not convinced." James huffed. "How does the color of a wall give someone a headache?" he muttered to Remus when Lily left to get Harry from his afternoon nap. Remus laughed.

"To be honest it gave me a bit of a headache too, mate." he said. James stared at him with a sort of betrayed horror.

"Traitor." he mumbled and went to go sulk in an armchair. He was such a child, Remus thought. Of course, James wouldn't be James if he didn't act like a child. It was his qualifying factor.

Lily walked into the room, carrying a baby on her hip that was much bigger than he had been last month. The moment he saw him, he reached out for his mother to put him down and toddled across the floor, stopping at where Remus sat on the couch and lifting his arms to be picked up.

"Why, hello there Harry!" Remus exclaimed, lifting the little boy onto his lap and beaming at him. Harry returned his smile.

"Moony!" he exclaimed. He reached out and touched his nose. "Nose!" Remus smiled.

"That's right! Where's my ear?" he asked. Harry grinned; this was his favorite game. He pushed his face to the side with his tiny hand and touched his ear.

"What about your nose? Where's Harry's nose?" Remus asked him. Harry pointed to his own nose.

"Good job! High five!" he put his hand up and Harry slapped it before erupting into peals of contagious laughter that had the adults giggling too. Remus set Harry back down, who ran off to fetch a toy truck and drive it around the room. Lily turned back to Remus.

"You're so good with kids." she said with a gentle smile. Remus shrugged.

"Perhaps, but I doubt I could raise one. I don't have the patience." James snorted.

"Moony not have patience? How the hell did you deal with us all those years then? You have patience that rivals one of those traveling, self depriving muggle men." Remus raised an eyebrow.

"Do you mean monks?" he asked, faint amusement in his voice. "And they do that not because they're patient but because it's part of their religion. This is how they believe they are supposed to act." he said. James waved a hand.

"Whatever, you still have the patience of a god." Remus shook his head.

"I've never heard of a patient god. They don't wait for things to happen or let things take their own course. All gods force things to happen the way they want them to." James gave him an exasperated look.

"Really, Rem, I don't care." he said. "I'm just trying to make a point."

"You don't have a very good argument with such a weak simile." James opened his mouth to respond, but Lily interrupted.

"Why are you two arguing over this?" she asked, amused but trying to hide it. "It's a bit annoying really." And once again cutting her husband off, she turned to Remus. "Tell us now, how come your back so early."

Remus shifted and cleared his throat. "Well, as you already know, I was living among the werewolves, trying to convince them to join the Order. However, they weren't very happy about this. Last time I had returned to the tribe, they said they could smell humans on me and that if I didn't stop communicating with them they would brand me a traitor and kill me.

"So I told them I wouldn't and continued living with them, trying to slowly show them exactly what Voldemort was doing and how all his empty promises were just that. I was just starting to get somewhere with a few of them when I received another letter from Dumbledore. They took this as substantial evidence that I was still in contact with him. I tried to tell them I hadn't instigated it, but..." he shrugged. Lily put a sympathetic arm on his shoulder.

"How about I go make us some tea?" she said, suddenly brightening, and leaving the room. James immediately walked over and picked up Harry.

"Moony, check out what I taught Harry!" he said in whispered excitement, bringing him back over. But before he had a chance to show him, Lily came back in holding a newspaper.

"James, have you seen this?" she asked him. "The Chudely Cannons-"

"Fuck!" shouted Harry, delighted. Lily stared at her son and James went pale. Remus could deduce that this was exactly what James had taught Harry that he didn't want Lily to know. After a few second awkward silence, Remus burst out laughing.

"It's not funny, Remus!" she exclaimed, but Remus kept right on laughing. Lily turned on James.

"Is this your doing?" she asked in a low dangerous voice. James gulped. He forced a smile.

"No, of course not, I have no idea how he learned that." he said shakily. It was only seconds before he cracked and his words came out in a rush. "Okay yes I taught it to him but can you really blame me? I mean, I couldn't let him grow up with bad taste could I and it would have been the epitome of bad taste for him to like the Chudley Cannons and so I had to teach him young that they weren't a good team and haven't I saved him a lot of confusion, having to figure this all out for himself-"

Remus, meanwhile, was still laughing hysterically. It felt good, he realized, laughing. He hadn't laughed this hard in years. He may have never been this happy. He was so glad to be here, with his best mate and Lily and Harry and after all that time in the woods, trying to turn a bunch of hard headed werewolves to Dumbledore's view - it just felt so good, like they were all back in school again, like nothing had ever had or ever would happen. Remus rarely got these sorts of moments and planned to milk it as long as possible.

When finally he had control over himself once again, he interrupted the argument. "Now Lily," he chuckled. "Is it really that bad? What's the worst thing that could happen? James invites over a bunch of Quidditch mates and Harry repeatedly swears? They'll love it!" he reasoned with her. Lily turned towards him, eyes ablaze, and looked ready to make an argument, but her eyes softened the minute she saw him. His prematurely greying hair and lined face with kind soft eyes full of mirth made it impossible for anyone, even Lily Evans Potter, to yell at him.

Lily sighed. "Remus, come now, I don't want my one year old knowing words like this, even if he only uses them when a sports team is mentioned. He still knows them." Remus waved a hand.

"He'd have learned them sooner or later anyway." he said. James stared at his friend, amazed.

"Moony, only 2 years ago you would have slaughtered Me for saying something like that." Remus chuckled and patted him on the back.

"I would have, wouldn't I?" he said, looking back fondly at his old memories. "I wouldn't have spoken to you for at least a full day." James grinned.

"You were always so over reactive like that. Sometimes I wanted to hit you over the head with a frying pan, get you to loosen up a bit." James said.

"I wouldn't trade those days for anything." Remus said fondly. "Life wouldn't be the same without you and all the memories you've given me."

Lily laughed quietly to herself and they turned to look at her. "I was just thinking - do you remember the first time James asked me out? In our second year?"

"I got up on top of a table and proclaimed my undying love in the common room." James said with a smile.

"Yes, and then Lily performed a fabulous Reductor Curse on said table, toppling you to the floor." Remus added. James pouted and rubbed his shoulder as though it had only just happened.

"That hurt, y'know." he said to his wife, who laughed her tinkling laugh and came to wrap her arms around his neck and peck him on the cheek.

"I'm sorry, love." she whispered. Remus glanced up at the clock on the wall and did a double take, standing.

"Merlin, is that the time?" he asked suddenly. It was already 3:00 in the afternoon - he was supposed to be meeting with Dumbledore! "I have a meeting with Dumbledore." he explained as he grabbed his cloak and fastened it around his neck hurriedly.

"When?" asked James, he and Lily standing as well and replacing little Harry on the floor so he promptly ran to grab Remus by the legs, who chuckled.

"Goodbye, Harry. I'll see you soon." he promised, and Harry looked up at him, his huge green eyes reflecting laughter and playfulness.

"Moony! Bye!" he said gleefully and erupted into another peal of laughter. Remus smiled and picked Harry up to give him a quick hug, then set him down to hug Lily and then James.

"Come visit again soon, Remus." Lily said as he left, James grinning behind her.

"Yeah, Moony, don't make us worry by not turing up for another month."

"Of course I'll come visit, Prongs, Lily." he waved and we off down the sidewalk to the nearest deserted ally to Apparate.

Sometimes now he wonders, what if he had stayed? What if he hadn't glanced up at the clock at that moment and realized he was late for a meeting with Dumbledore? Would things have turned out different? Maybe he would have smelled Voldemort before he had even busted down the door and they could have Apparated away. Or maybe he could have helped James fight him off while Lily hid Harry. Or maybe he could have convinced them to go out under cover to another Order members house, to get away for a little while.

There were a hundred different things that could have happened that day if only he had stayed, if only he hadn't left them alone. But he did. And he would never know if they would have survived with him there. He probably would only have died alongside them; James was the best in the class, after all.

As he sat in this arm chair and held his own small sleeping son, hoping the same thing won't happen to little Teddy.


End file.
